


the drugs, the dark, the light, the shame

by absenthium



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Mentions of Violence, Scars, Tim is sexy and never did anything wrong, a study in Tim and Jon's relationship, lots of them - Freeform, or should i say "fantasies"?, post season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28415604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absenthium/pseuds/absenthium
Summary: He remembers being sleepless, restless, and tracing Jon’s scarred hands with trembling fingers that never quite stopped quivering.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker
Kudos: 11





	the drugs, the dark, the light, the shame

**Author's Note:**

> as it was - hozier

They’ve got twin scars all over their hands, twin memories, and a gaze in their eyes that is the same but not quite.

Tim remembers low, light footsteps, reaching from his hospital room to Jon’s, across a dimly lighted corridor that smelled of disinfectant. It was at night, and he was not even supposed to be awake, but still.

He remembers being sleepless, restless, and tracing Jon’s scarred hands with trembling fingers that never quite stopped quivering.

He does not remember to have thought the two of them to be the same, but he must have had, because otherwise it wouldn’t make sense for him to ache. For Jon, and his presence, and for things to be exactly as they were before.

Some days, he just wants the old Jon back. Those days are the easiest, like a long breath after months of apnea, like a gentle sound among the half-spoken silence.

Some days, he wants to shout, grab Jon by the throat, twist his wrist in an unnatural angle just for the sake of seeing him fear something more than the memory of rotten flesh. Some days, he wants to taste Jon’s panic, feel his pain, his windpipe so fragile under Tim’s hands.

Some days, he just wants to break him.

These days are the hardest.

More common, too. They last longer, and leave him awake, eyes wide open in the dark, with the burning consciousness of his hate, of its’ violence.

He doesn’t like who he is, with Jon, but he can’t help it.

They’ve got twin scars.

Jon shrugs when he first hears it being said out loud, and Tim is almost sure to see his lips curve into something that feels almost like a smile.

He remembers the feeling of Jon’s palm against his. His own hands, and Jons’, smaller, unsure.

Tim recalls thinking their scars to be odd. To could look, over Jon’s dark skin, almost like stars, like holes in the same night sky he could see behind the window in the hospital, awake but not enough, still half high on medications.

They never talk about it. Not ever again.

When Jon stops talking to him, to anyone, to lock himself in the darkness of the Archive, to drown in paper and words, he wants to worry.

When he caught him staring at his window from across the street, or opening his bag to annotate its content, he wants to feel scared. He wants something more than this smothering rage, this disgust and hatred that leaves him still, quiet. Sitting in the middle of an overflow, waiting for the water to reach his mouth, fill his lungs, to empty him of all thoughts, suffocate him, at last.

Jon does not trust him. Is he to be trusted, anyway?

There’s no silence. No light.

The walls are made of ghosts. They’re going to flood them all, they’re going to suck him dry.

**Author's Note:**

> Well.  
> I'm definitely not midway through the second season and I definitely did not weep like a goddamn baby when Tim confronted Jon in episode 65. Not at all. Anyway, tragic and somewhat gay [because there is, in fact, a certain homoeroticism in hating someone's guts, but we do not talk about it] character studies are now my trademark. I'd say to get ready for more of my bullshit, but I'm an inconsistent writer and I don't like to make promises I know i can't keep.  
> As I said in the tags, Timothy Stoker is, in fact, very sexy, and did anything wrong. He truly is the only man ever.  
> E.


End file.
